"To advance the evolving field of precision medicine, Oracle Health Sciences today announced Oracle Healthcare Precision Medicine. This first-of its kind software solution connects genetic testing, report generation, and clinical care decision-making to accelerate delivery of precision medicine while making it more attainable and affordable. With this solution, Oracle continues to support the paradigm shift in clinical research and healthcare, from a one-size-fits-all approach to combat disease to a methodology that treats biological variations of individual patients..."

"With its cloud business growing in the Middle East, Oracle plans to establish a state-of-the-art data center in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. Oracle CEO Mark Hurd unveiled the plans January 26 as the latest evidence of Oracle's commitment to the region..."

'This is a big deal for us, big decision for us, big investment for us,' Hurd said in a briefing at Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi. 'It's one of the regions leading our movement to the cloud.'

Reggie writes, "For this column I've enlisted the help of Lars Silberbauer, global director of social media and search for LEGO Group. Lars and I are making a joint presentation at an Oracle conference in Dubai entitled, 'Modern CX: Mobile, Social, Global, And Transforming Businesses.' In advance of that presentation, we wanted to share a few thoughts on three compelling areas of marketing that are influencing the business environment: customer experience, data-driven marketing, and the real-time marketing organization..."

"Over the past year, machine learning has gone mainstream in an unprecedented way. The trend isn't fueled by cheap cloud environments and ever more powerful GPU hardware alone; it's also the explosion of frameworks now available for machine learning. All are open source, but even more important is how they are being designed to abstract away the hardest parts of machine learning, and make its techniques available to a broad class of developers.

Here's a baker's dozen machine learning frameworks, either freshly minted or newly revised within the past year. All caught our attention for being a product of a major presence in IT, for attempting to bring a novel simplicity to their problem domain, or for targeting a specific challenge associated with machine learning..."

"IN A MAJOR breakthrough for artificial intelligence, a computing system developed by Google researchers in Great Britain has beaten a top human player at the game of Go, the ancient Eastern contest of strategy and intuition that has bedeviled AI experts for decades.

Machines have topped the best humans at most games held up as measures of human intellect, including chess, Scrabble, Othello, even Jeopardy!. But with Go..."

"Some prominent names are putting forth ominous warnings of the effects Artificial Intelligence (AI) can have on mankind. Let's take a few steps back from the hyperbole and assess the promise of AI, instead of the pessimism...

There have been many discussions in the blogosphere predicting the doom and gloom of the inevitable rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I've seen theories on everything from how it will result in massive layoffs to the ultimate downfall of humanity itself..."

"The seventh Star Wars instalment 'The Force Awakens,' stormed the world at the end of 2015, nearly four decades since the first film made human and droid characters part of our popular consciousness.

With the familiarity of C-3PO, R2-D2 and newcomer BB-8, many have become attached to the concepts of robotics and artificial intelligence. While 2016 isn't likely to produce robots able to sense, respond and adapt to people and their emotions, this year should be a game changer in terms of AI adoption and the emergence of the intelligent enterprise..."

Srikant Bharadwaj blogs, "The zone cluster feature of Oracle Solaris Cluster supports importing non-global zones into a zone cluster starting in version 4.3. This article is going to focus on the methods to import a zone and get the Oracle Solaris Cluster software installed in it.

With this feature you can import existing installed zones into a new zone cluster or an existing zone cluster configuration using the clzonecluster subcommand import-zone..."

Zeynep blogs, "This Friday we will focus on Oracle VM VirtualBox because we just heard that G2 Crowd, a platform for users to share business software reviews in real-time, published a report where VirtualBox is the leader among a broad list of the VDI (Virtual Desktop Integration) products, ranked by customer satisfaction (based on user reviews) and market presence (based on market share, vendor size, and social impact)..."

"VirtualBox has been named a Leader based on receiving a high customer satisfaction score and having a large market presence. VirtualBox has the largest Market Presence and received the highest Satisfaction score among virtual desktop infrastructure products. 95% of users rated it 4 or 5 stars and 84% of users believe VirtualBox is headed in the right direction."

"We are living in a world that is more connected than ever before. The upcoming year is already being heralded as the year of 'The Connected Device,' with connected fridges talking to smartphones talking to game consoles talking to connected cars. As technology advances, devices are better able to analyse and share stored data to learn our habits and preferences. Sooner than we might expect, we could all live in Smart Homes - where the thermostat automatically adjusts when you wake up, your refrigerator gives you a grocery list, and your car starts to warm itself up while you're eating breakfast..."

"In the future, computers may be able to read your thoughts through a connection with the brain. DARPA wants to create a device that could help make that happen.

The device, which will be the size of two stacked nickels, will translate information from a brain into digital signals for use on a computer. The device is being developed as part of a four-year, US$60 million research program funded by DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which operates under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Defense..."

Google is testing out its top secret 5G drones at New Mexico's Spaceport Authority. The solar-powered drones are being tested with the help of Virgin Galactic, a spaceflight company owned by Richard Branson's Virgin.

"Thumb-size PCs like Intel's Compute Stick are still a novelty, but adoption will slowly grow as TVs and displays increasingly become the center of entertainment and computing.

ABI Research is estimating that shipments of these compact computers will reach 5 million by 2021. ABI didn't provide shipment numbers for 2015, but the market for the devices is still in its infancy.

The forecast growth trajectory sounds like that for Chrome PCs, which were introduced in 2011 but whose worldwide shipments grew gradually to about 5.7 million units through the first three quarters of 2015..."

"Even many of its members acknowledge Bitcoin Core has had a communication problem.

The largely volunteer development team, which provides peer review and testing for the bitcoin network's underlying code, has been on the defensive following the decision by a former member to criticize the project for failing to take what he considered to be adequate measures to handle a greater volume of transactions.

"A small development team from Australia are poised to bring a potential trillion dollar industry to bitcoin. A team of three 20-something developers (Jesse Gileppa, Dao Zhou and Julie Lovisa), lead by Noel Lovisa, have created an entirely new software development technology, a technology that utilises a peer-to-peer network of software experts called vendors who transact exclusively using bitcoin..."

"'Big Four' professional services firm Deloitte has published a report that takes a look at the potential uses of blockchain technology while arguing that its acceptance and wider adoption are fast approaching.

Introducing the paper, two of the firm's partners say that while the tipping point for the technology may not occur until around 2027, Deloitte anticipates adoption "will occur much faster" as new applications emerge..."

"Experienced Bitcoin users will gladly tell people how the popular digital currency will not help much regarding privacy and anonymity. Even though mainstream media outlets keep preaching the exact opposite of that statement, a new study by Rutgers shows how transactions are not as privacy-centric as people assume. Plus, there are still some questions regarding Bitcoin's convenience that need to be addressed..."

"The blockchain - upon which Bitcoin is based - has been the center of heated discussion in recent months. The blockchain is a means of sending digital messages between parties whose purported history can be trusted.

Bitcoin 2.0 companies and the 'promises' of the blockchain have become a recurring theme in the Bitcoin space. Some have discussed how 'the greatest potential for Bitcoin may reside in its underlying technology rather than as a currency.' In 2015, talk shift from Bitcoin to the Blockchain, of that there can be no doubt..."

"CoinDesk's 2016 State of Bitcoin and Blockchain report summarizes key trends, data and events from 2015, details findings from our annual Thought Leader's Survey and includes predictions on what to expect in 2016.

"The block size debate has made clear what Bitcoiner's value most: adoption and growth. It seems these Bitcoin values have trumped the mere survival of the Bitcoin market. As many Bitcoin experts (like Gavin Andresen) have noted thus far in the block size debate, Bitcoin can survive as is, the only thing which the block size limit could deter is growth and adoption..."

"BNY Mellon hosted a blockchain event at its Jersey City, New Jersey, campus on 28th January, an event that, while small in terms of the number of attendees, could have a potentially huge impact on how the bank does business in the months and years ahead.

Like many other financial institutions in the world, BNY Mellon is weighing how to apply the code that underlies bitcoin to new use cases. Last year, the bank revealed that it had used its own digital currency for an internal rewards pilot..."

"Opensource.com asked readers a few months ago: What's the biggest barrier to participation in open source? Answers from 56% of poll takers was that they aren't sure where to start. And, 13% said they are uncomfortable jumping in.

If you feel the same way, this post is for you.

To help navigate your first open source contribution, I've put together a list of what I think are the most beginner-friendly open source starting points, as well as, a few other helpful resources..."

"Privacy on the Internet is.. well, let's just say it's complicated. In this article, I'll analyze a few open source tools and concepts that you might use to increase privacy on the Internet for yourself. It will not be an exhaustive list of all possible avenues, nor does it pretend to ensure complete privacy even in the face of a concentrated, personal attack. Some of the tips you will find useful, others you will discard, and still others you might use in conjunction with other policies to construct your own privacy model..."

Eric Reid blogs, "For those of you who are holding on to the /usr/ucb commands as a last vestige of Solaris's origins in the UC Berkeley UNIX distribution, it's time to act. The long-anticipated demise of the /usr/ucb and /usr/ucblib directories is planned for the next major version of Solaris. If you are building software that uses these components, now's the time to switch to alternatives. Shell scripts are often used during software installation and configuration, so dependency on /usr/ucb commands could stop your app from installing properly..."

Oracle released a set of Selected FOSS Component packages that can be used with/on Solaris 11.3. These packages provide customers with evaluation copies of new and updated versions of FOSS ahead of officially supported Oracle Solaris product releases.

These packages are available at the Oracle Solaris product release repository for customers running Oracle Solaris 11.3 GA. The source code used to build the components is available at the Solaris Userland Project on Java.net. The packages are not supported through any Oracle support channels. Customers can use the software at their own risk.

"Oracle Solaris continues to evolve as the foundation for critical private cloud implementations. As the premier UNIX in the IT industry, certified against the OpenGroup's exacting standards for enterprise-level operating systems, Solaris 11 enables Oracle customers and partners to provide the elasticity, security, scalability, and stability required for today's demanding Cloud Computing requirements.

As Chris Riggin, Enterprise Architect at Verizon, said at last Fall's Oracle OpenWorld, the cloud services enabled by Solaris provide the massive scaling for Verizon's 135 million customers and 180,000 employees needed to speed service delivery and to maintain Verizon's competitive edge..."

"Consumers, empowered by rich software interactions with access to Internet resources, have never had more power or choices.

DevOps provides a set of practices and cultural changes - supported by complementary tools - that automates the software delivery pipeline, enabling organizations to win, serve, and retain these consumers better and faster than ever before..."

"Let's talk about a real problem that all of us have faced at one point or another: keeping track of a single thread of work across many disparate tools. Regardless of the industry a company operates in, as a company grows it accumulated back-office applications that support of the business.

Many knowledge-based companies have some sort of communication tool, project tracker and support tracker, all designed to help improve business process. Conversations suffice until they do not, and tools are implemented as the need arises. Every added tool has its purpose, solves a critical need and makes you and/or your team more productive..."

To help hospitality companies personalize all aspects of their engagement with customers while also delivering an excellent guest experience on site, Oracle today introduced a cloud services version of its industry-leading suite of hospitality solutions. The new Oracle Hospitality cloud services enable hotel and casino operators to better manage every aspect of their customer relationships and on-site operations, while simplifying their IT infrastructure and deriving value faster from new innovations.

'To win in the highly competitive hotel industry, hotels need to deliver personalized guest experiences, increase operational efficiency, and effectively manage distribution,' said Ray Carlin, vice president of product strategy, Oracle Hospitality. 'Oracle's cloud-based solutions bring significant advantages in all these key areas, while at the same time streamlining on-premise IT management and offering enhanced application and data security built in.'

Would you pay 7x more money for your hardware on premise such as servers and storage? Then why do it for your deep cold archive storage in the cloud? While Amazon Glacier is priced very aggressively, they are still at least 7x the price of Oracle's Archive Cloud on a monthly basis.

But maybe you already have your data there and you are worried about the ridiculous retrieval costing method Amazon uses to get YOUR data back from the Glacier! Well thankfully there are tools to help with that such as FastGlacier that will limit how fast you retrieve data from Glacier and control your retrieval costs..."

Zeynep writes, "we would like to highlight a great new OTN article: Running OpenSCAP compliance checks on Oracle Linux.

Many of you may have heard OpenSCAP, if not here are some details. SCAP is U.S. standard maintained by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). SCAP is a multi-purpose framework of specifications that supports automated configuration, vulnerability and patch checking, technical control compliance activities, and security measurement..."

"Despite public cloud being as popular as ever, questions like, 'is it more secure than my data center?' still remain.

In October, Amazon Web Services released a white paper outlining best practices for using its cloud. Sections include how to control costs, enable fault-tolerant infrastructure and get the best performance. Perhaps most importantly, it has advice on how to secure an AWS cloud environment..."

"Nearly two-thirds of IT security professionals think cloud software security equals what they can provide in enterprise data centers, according to Cloud Security Alliance survey...

The perception that computing in the cloud is less secure than the enterprise data center is gradually reversing.

One sign was when Capital One Financial CIO Robert Alexander spoke at Amazon Web Services' Re-Invent last October in Las Vegas to say the EC2 cloud would host his firm's next mobile banking application. The EC2 cloud was more secure for that purpose than most enterprise data centers, he said on stage Oct. 7..."

"Sometimes, one cloud just isn't enough. Consider a multicloud strategy to more efficiently tackle your IT challenges.

If they aren't already, most businesses will soon be using public cloud services. The cloud is the perfect model to juggle issues with in-house technical support, agility of IT resources and cost. There are cloud providers that specialize in all of the common business or financial capabilities that could lead to compelling cloud business cases. In fact, that's the problem for many users. Considering their own varied needs and the growing specialization of cloud providers, many organizations are apt to choose more than one service provider and use multiple clouds..."

"The worldwide market for public cloud systems is projected to hit $204 billion this year, a 16.5% increase over the $175 billion market in 2015, according to analyst firm Gartner..."

"The market for public cloud services is continuing to demonstrate high rates of growth across all markets and Gartner expects this to continue through 2017," said Sid Nag, research director at Gartner, in a statement. "This strong growth continues to reflect a shift away from legacy IT services to cloud-based services, due to increased trend of organizations pursuing a digital business strategy."

"Google for Work and the Google App Engine recently received the &#8203;FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) authorization to operate...

Google for Work -- the enterprise arm of Google Apps -- is now offering unlimited cloud storage to all U.S. government workers.

In a blog post Friday, Google for Work president Amit Singh said that over the holidays, Google for Work and the Google App Engine received FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) authorization to operate..."

"Shoppers really can find anything at Walmart these days. Including, it would seem, development software to help programmers write and maintain their projects. The company just announced that it has made OneOps, a cloud Relevant Products/Services management and application lifecycle management platform developed by Walmart Labs, open source under the Apache 2.0 license..."

"Combining big data and the cloud is the perfect solution for a company's computing needs. A company's data often requires a computing environment which can quickly and effectively grow and flex, automatically accommodating large amounts of data. The cloud computing environment does just that. There is one question which continually arises when discussing cloud computing.

How secure is the cloud?

Securing data, especially big data is a major concern. Companies expect that any data stored in the cloud will be secured and that the security measures will be flexible to keep up with a changing threat environment. There are four ways to keep your big data secure in the cloud. Each will keep your data safe and yet provide the flexibility that is inherent to using the cloud..."

"Merger and acquisition deal announcements hit an all-time high of in 2015, from Anthem and Cigna to EMC and Dell. And experts expect robust M&A activity this year. But just as major mergers lead to major integration efforts for IT, they also spell significant work around outsourcing arrangements. In fact, the selling company is typically responsible for negotiating new sourcing services agreements before a divestiture is complete.

Not only is the seller often obligated contractually to ensure that the divested entity can operate once it is removed from the seller's IT infrastructure..."

"If you're still relying on conference calls or IM, it's time your team explored group chat. Here's what Slack, HipChat and six other providers have to offer.

Everyone knows the secret to success - personal and business alike - is good communication. But in what form? If you're trying to communicate with a group in real time, you're no doubt familiar with the old standby: conference calls. You know: those mind-numbing phone meetings in which talkers overlap, voice quality is terrible, half the people aren't paying attention and somebody's dog barks intermittently throughout the call..."

In many ways, security awareness training exemplifies the way information security is seen and tackled by senior management.

A once-a-year, classroom-based approach may be traditional, with security updates and warnings posted on walls and the Intranet, but it is also a sign of a tick-box, compliance-driven approach to security. It is often done to appease industry regulators, PCI and data protection authorities, and the training can offer relatively basic - arguably condescending- advice..."

"CIOs and strategy experts share their experiences of creating an IT strategy that makes the most of the digital revolution

Modern IT leaders are under siege. CIOs are expected to keep systems up and running, while also keeping track of fast-changing business demands and the technologies that can help improve organisational effectiveness..."

"2016 brings many CIOs to a fork in the road when they must make major decisions regarding the direction they will take to evolve their IT organization to better address business demands. The decisions are all about speed, and quickly responding to the business and its requirements is paramount. Here are six important areas where you'll need to rethink how to evolve your team and accommodate the realities of the new business world..."

"Deloitte's CIO Programs leader identifies three priorities for CIOs who want to distinguish themselves IT strategists, decision-makers and leaders...

In the new year, many CIOs may find themselves at a critical juncture. They can either build themselves into successful business leaders or they can risk being relegated to second tier 'care and maintenance' roles in which they will provide technology support for the strategies and goals of others..."

"Disaster recovery tests require a lot of preparation, but they are essential to a proper DR strategy. This checklist will help your organization before, during and after DR testing.

A disaster recovery test plan is a critical part of any DR strategy. Without a solid DR plan and regular testing, organizations cannot be completely confident in their ability to successfully recover and resume critical systems, networks and other IT resources following a disruptive incident.

Here are 15 tips that ensure your organization receives the best possible results from its DR tests..."

"As technology extends the boundaries of your business into new digital frontiers, there are ever more ways for things to go belly up. Your business potentially hinges on many different servers and digital service providers. Depending on the nature of your business, you also depend on physical supply chains, couriers, and any number of other businesses and service providers which keep your company running..."

"Too many times we are winging it on success or customer satisfaction with no yardsticks to measure past and current project standards against. Organizations should be implementing policies to help ensure continuous improvement on project deliveries.

Ever notice how those child safety caps cease being child proof about halfway through the life cycle of the product and just become regular caps. Don't the manufacturers care about potential lawsuits? How many product developers does it take to make a child safety cap that will function for an entire month?..."

"Throughout the years the profession of project management has evolved from a niche, technical-based discipline to a fully embedded approach to the way work gets done. Smart organizations continuously embrace new trends to stay ahead of the competition and continue to innovate. TwentyEighty Strategy Execution put together a panel of experts to identify the top ten project management trends for 2016. This year's trends center around the evolving role of the project manager, the skills required to fill that role and how project-based work gets done most effectively..."

"More research is needed into the cybersecurity of the Internet of Things, said Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, head of Army Cyber Command..."

"People are connecting stuff to the Internet that we never thought would be connected," Cardon said Jan. 29 at the Institute of World Politics in Washington. "You know people are working on hacking your Fitbit."

"The Internet of Things -- a catchall term for the increasing connectivity of a vast array of devices -- is arguably indefensible against hacks and exploits..."

"With the IoT, we desperately need a common vision of a tomorrow and a critical mass of folks to believe enough to make happen, writes columnist Rob Enderle.

We've had a series of problems of late with core technology initiatives largely because we tend to get excited about the technology and not think through what an acceptable solution would be. For instance, we are still struggling with the problem of big data. We grew repositories and didn't think through that it wasn't the amount of data that was important, it was the decision support we could get from it..."

"AT&T has struck a deal with Canonical that could shape the future of the platform currently 'owning' the cloud..."

"Like most mobile carriers across the globe, AT&T has embraced Linux - in fact, the Linux kernel powers the Android platform. But AT&T recently surprised a lot of people by turning its back on Microsoft and adopting Ubuntu as its cloud, enterprise, and application solution provider. In addition, Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) will provide support for these platforms/solutions..."

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. It was inspired by Minix, a small Unix System and was introduced in October 1991.

The first official version was Linux 0.02. In 2001, 2.4 version was released. It is developed under GNU license, which allows the source code of Linux to be distributed freely. Linux is used for networking, software development and web hosting..."

"If having more tools is better for security, then the latest release of the BlackArch Linux distribution will be warmly received by security researchers. Version 2016.01.10 of BlackArch Linux, which was released on Jan. 10, boasts more than 30 new security tools, bringing the total number of security tools to 1,330. BlackArch is a security-focused operating system that is based on the Arch Linux distribution..."

"Tails 2.0 is out with improved features, a new desktop shell, and an easier way for new users to install the OS...

Edward Snowden's favorite secure operating system just got a major upgrade. Version 2.0 of the Amnesic Incognito Live System, better known as Tails, rolled out recently. Tails 2.0 brings a new desktop environment, sandboxing for services via the always controversial systemd, and a new build of the Tor Browser..."

"In 2009, a team of journalists who were investigating the electronic waste, purchased a computer in a Ghana market that was found to contain "sensitive documents belonging to U.S. government contractor Northrop Grumman," wrote Robert McMillan in a story at the time. "Northrop Grumman is not sure how the drive ended up in a Ghana market, but apparently the company had hired an outside vendor to dispose of the PC."

"2015 was a tumultuous year for CISOs. Breaches affecting The Home Depot, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and T-Mobile dominated the headlines worldwide and left no industry, region, or CISO unscathed. These unfortunate spotlights created a slew of negative infosec publicity along with panicked demands from business leaders and customers alike. How secure are we? Ask the CISO. How did this breach occur? Ask the CISO. Why did this breach occur? Ask the CISO. Could we have prevented it? Ask the CISO. How could we let this happen? Ask the CISO..."

"The rollout of chip-embedded credit cards, while slow, is eventually expected to cut fraudulent in-person transactions...

The fight to curb credit card cybercrime might seem a bit like trying to force the air out of a sealed balloon: Squeeze it in one place, and it simply bulges out in another.

That is the image suggested by multiple predictions that, as the shift to EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) technology makes in-person, point-of-sale (POS) transactions more secure, criminals are shifting the bulk of their attacks to online, or card-not-present (CNP) transactions..."

"There are dozens of password managers out there, but no two are created alike. We've rounded up the most popular options and broken down their features so you can pick the right one for you...

If you're the tech-savvy sort, there's a good chance that you already know why you'd want a password manager, and you can skip to the good stuff. But if you're on the fence (or don't even know why you should be on the fence in the first place) let us start by saying: installing a password manager is one of the most important things you can do to keep your data safe and secure. It's not just for security exports and the paranoid: it's for everyone..."

"Ten CISOs from across industries have predicted that the days are numbered for the password as the sole authentication method. They see enterprises moving to augment or supplant the traditional password with advanced technologies, such as biometrics.

Security Current, an information and collaboration company, talked with various CISOs to find that they agree that passwords are inherently flawed because they depend on users to create and remember complex sequences of letters, numbers and characters..."

'I've been in meeting after meeting after meeting where companies like all of yours absolutely underestimate the impact of security breaches on the company,' Matthew Karlyn, Partner, Technology Transactions & Outsourcing Practice, Foley & Lardner LLP told attendees at the CIO Perspectives event in Houston in November 2015..."

"The entire C-suite and board is on the hot seat for security these days," Karlyn said. As a result, "board members, CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives are laser-focused on understanding corporate information security."

"The world moves swiftly; the IT security world even more so. Just a couple of years ago, securing the enterprise would basically consist of protecting an organization from external intruders. Today, the battle has changed ground.

Education efforts from industry players have created higher levels of IT security awareness in the business world, and more firms have implemented basic security measures that can thwart
direct attacks effectively.

This development is forcing hackers to up their game by figuring out alternative ways to get their hands on valuable enterprise assets..."

"There has been some concern that Windows 10 gathers far too much private information from users. Whether you think Microsoft's operating system crosses the privacy line, or just want to make sure you protect as much of your personal life as possible, we're here to help. Here's how to protect your privacy in just a few minutes..."

"Anonymous career review and job search site Glassdoor recently released the 2016 edition of its annual Best Jobs in America list and, not surprising, nearly half of the 25 jobs are in the IT industry. So, if finding a new job is at the top of your 2016 to-do list, check out the best of the best in IT careers, from Glassdoor's user-generated data on earning potential, number of job openings and career opportunities..."

"Good IT talent is hard to find. You know what's even more difficult? Finding good cybersecurity talent. Demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals is growing at an astonishing rate -- four times faster than the IT jobs market and 12 times faster than the overall labor market, according to research from Burning Glass Technologies.

Unfortunately, supply isn't keeping up with demand, according to online cybersecurity training and MOOC platform Cybrary's Cyber Security Job Trends Survey for 2016. Of the 435 senior-level technology professionals who completed the survey between October and December 2015, 68 percent affirmed that there is a global shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals. Only 13 percent of companies said there was an abundance of cybersecurity talent in their local areas.

Using the same old sourcing and recruiting tactics isn't going to work -- what you need are, well, hacks who can help you better attract and retain critical cybersecurity talent and skills. Here are eight approaches to finding cybersecurity talent..."

"Retaining top talent can be a real problem for IT leaders, but there are effective (and simple) ways to keep your best workers.

While employees in other industries may hold onto recession-era concerns about leaving their job and not finding another, IT professionals have little fear of unemployment.

In the greater Atlanta area, where we have an office, the IT unemployment rate is less than 2%. As Lee Congdon, the CIO of Red Hat, explains, 'There aren't as many qualified candidates as there used to be, and qualified candidates have multiple offers by the time they get to the altar.'

"More than three out of four IT decision makers are interested in running stateful applications such as databases within containers, according to a recent survey conducted by Robin Systems, a Silicon Valley-based provider of containerized data platform software. Results of the survey, conducted in December 2015 with more than 200 respondents from industry verticals including retail, banking/finance, manufacturing, and Internet infrastructure, also indicated 81 percent of respondents expect their companies to increase the investment in container-based technology..."

"With many companies looking at more agile, open source alternatives to proprietary databases, how do you choose which is the best fit for your needs...

A decade ago, most enterprises building a database had only two or three choices: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and - to a lesser extent - IBM DB2. Open source systems such as MySQL and PostgreSQL existed, but they were not on the radar of most commercial organisations..."

"A few things have changed in the database landscape since our Top 10 MySQL GUI Tools list was compiled--in particular the emergence of cloud services. Keep that in mind when searching for the right MySQL admin tool.

Most relational databases, with the notable exception of MS Access, are comprised of two distinct components: the back-end, where the data is warehoused, and the front-end, a user interface for communicating with the data component. This type of design is quite clever, as it parallels the two tier programming model that separates the data layer from the user interface and allows the makers of the database software to focus on their product's strongest suit: data storage and management. It also opens the door for third parties to create rich applications to interact with various databases. Such products include Embarkedaro Rapid SQL and Oracle SQL Developer. Here are ten outstanding graphical interfaces for MySQL..."

"It's been three and a half years since we published our research paper on Securing Big Data. That research paper has been one of the more popular papers we've ever written. And it's no wonder as NoSQL adoption was faster than we expected; we see hundreds of new projects popping up, leveraging the scale, analytics and low cost of these platforms. It's not hyperbole to claim it has revolutionized the database market over the last 5 years, and community support behind these platforms - and especially Hadoop - is staggering..."

"In its recently released Analytics Trends 2016 report, consulting firm Deloitte predicts six major trends will significantly shape business in 2016..."

"Business leaders continue to face many varying challenges and opportunities, and staying ahead of these trends will have a lasting impact on how their organizations will operate in the future," says John Lucker, principal, Deloitte Consulting.

"The goal with this post is to succinctly outline what Hadoop and most NoSQL clusters look like, how they are assembled, and how they are used. In this light we get a better idea of the security challenges and what sort of protections need to be leveraged. As developers and data scientists stretch systems from a performance and scalability standpoint, and custom assemblage of open source and commercial products, there really is no such thing as a standard Hadoop deployment. So with these considerations in mind we will map out threats to the cluster.

"If you're not testing the performance of the mobile apps your company is deploying, you may be driving your employees into the shadows.

Got a mobile app? If you're not using key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of those apps - and your investment in them - your company could be falling behind.

That's the message from Red Hat 2015 Mobile Maturity Survey, which surveyed IT decision makers from 200 private sector companies with at least 2,500 employees based in the U.S. and Western Europe. They found that almost everyone was using this key data to see how their mobile apps are doing..."

"With 2016 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.

Cass recently completed its 2015 'Bring Your Own Device Mobility Study' based on a survey of more than 200 IT leaders from over 175 enterprises. The results: The BYOD movement is as healthy as ever.

In the 2015 survey, 85% of respondents indicated BYOD was incorporated into their organization's current telecom offering. Additionally, 42% of respondents described their BYOD programs as 'well established' within their organizations, while that number was just 25% in a similar study conducted by Cass one year ago..."

"The National Institute of Standards and Technology is looking to make the backbone of cryptography -- random bit generators -- less predictable.

NIST has released the second draft of a publication that specifies design principles for sources of entropy, which measure the randomness of generated numbers. Without a reliably random RBG, hackers can slice through a user's communications..."

"Sophos recently released a report and infographic detailing encryption adoption in the enterprise...

In case you were unaware, January 28 marked national Data Privacy Day. On that day, security company Sophos released an infographic detailing some of the findings of its recent report, The State of Encryption Today.

The survey collected answers from 1700 IT managers and found that 44% of organizations are using encryption extensively, while 43% were using encryption to some degree. Larger companies were more likely to use encryption, though, with 50% of organizations with 501-2,000 employees using it..."

"Oracle has announced that it's finally going to kill its Java browser plug-in. This move can't come soon enough - in recent years, the Java browser plug-in has become a favored target of hackers and malware authors. A 2014 report from Cisco claimed that a whopping 91% of all attacks were against Java..."

Red Hat Inc. has announced the availability of the first beta build of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP). Version 7 of the company's Java EE-based middleware platform addresses new enterprise interest in containers and microservices, and integrates Red Hat's WildFly Application Server 10.

"Within the HPC vendor and science community, the groundswell of support for HPC and big data convergence is undeniable with sentiments running the gamut from the pragmatic to the enthusiastic. For Argonne computer scientist and HPC veteran Pete Beckman, the writing is on the wall. As the leader of the Argo exascale software project and one of the principal organizers of the workshop series on Big Data and Extreme-scale Computing (BDEC), Beckman and his collaborators are helping to usher in a new era in research computing, where one machine will be capable of meeting the needs of the extreme-scale simulation and data analysis communities..."

Geertjan blogs, "SYCLONE by Clemessy is a modular solution for SCADA and real-time command/control systems. It provides a graphical display, graphical sequence editor, and a real-time sequence executor. The modular design allows it to be used in projects of all types, from touch panels in hardened cabinets for processes with no real-time needs, to control and measuring systems for commercIal and military launchers and boosters..."

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).

With its 6,000+ customers, 1,000+ partners, 30+ patents, and more than 1,100 petabytes of storage under management, Nexenta owes its market and thought leadership to thousands of innovative developers in its open ecosystem and community. Nexenta uniquely integrates software-only open source collaboration with commodity hardware-centric Software-Defined Storage (SDS) innovation. Nexenta OpenSDS solutions are 100 percent software-based and 100 percent hardware-, protocol-, and app-agnostic providing organizations with total freedom of choice and protecting them against the notoriously punitive vendor lock-in business models, sales schemes, and delivery practices used by many legacy system vendors.

"Companies everywhere are drowning in data. They are collecting more of it, and at an accelerated pace, while at the same time depending on it more than they have before. Data centers are being constructed around the world to house all this information, but research shows that more than two-thirds of what is being kept is worthless.

The world has a unique opportunity to prevent a new digital divide and raise the quality of life for millions, according to a new report by networking giant, Cisco and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN specialized agency for ICTs.

The report, 'Harnessing the Internet of Things for Global Development', outlines how the Internet of Things (IoT) can act as the catalyst to rapidly accelerate the rate of global development to achieve, and surpass, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a time frame unthinkable even a few years ago.

The joint report, launched at the Pacific Telecommunications Council annual meeting in Hawaii, highlights how the developed world's demand for IoT technologies and connectivity means that IoT devices are now readily available, affordable and scalable for the developing world: providing the perfect platform to help kick start emerging economies and provide much improved quality of life for communities with minimal investment.

"Laptop size is a personal preference. Having owned numerous 15- and 13-inch laptops and used various 11-inch ones, 13 inches is very much my sweet spot: a big-enough screen that I can have a bunch of open windows and a small-enough package that it's not too burdensome to carry around or use on the plane. Indeed, if you were to judge the market by what technology sites most commonly talk about and prefer (and by what most technology writers seem to use for their own personal machines) you'd probably think that 13-inch laptops, or perhaps smaller, were the standard mainstream option..."

Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing, said, 'Mutually beneficial and collaborative patent licensing agreements like this one promote innovation and lead to better products and experiences for consumers.'

Symantec Corp. announced that it has completed the sale of Veritas to a group of investors led by The Carlyle Group. In connection with the closing of the transaction, Symantec received approximately $5.3 billion in after-tax cash proceeds.
Symantec is on track to return more than $4 billion in capital to its shareholders by the end of March 2017. This capital return includes:

A $500 million accelerated share repurchase completed in January 2016;

$1.8 billion remaining at the end of the Company's third quarter from its previously announced share repurchase program; and

The additional $2 billion of capital return that the Board announced today.

Michael A. Brown, Symantec president and CEO, said, 'Symantec now has a clear path forward as the global leader in cybersecurity. With the Veritas transaction completed, Symantec has the increased financial flexibility to maximize shareholder value through returning significant capital to shareholders and to consider acquisition opportunities that will accelerate our unified security strategy.'

When IBM announced the close of its acquisition of The Weather Company on Friday, it added another veteran CEO in Weather's David Kenny to work under Big Blue boss Ginni Rometty. And IBM's not wasting Kenny's time on integrating his former company into the fold. So hours after the the announcement, the newly-appointed chief of the critical IBM Watson unit shared his top priority: to bring Watson together into a more cohesive product that will introduce 'artificial intelligence as a service.'

Fujitsu reported profit for the period attributable to owners of the parent of 5.2 billion yen, representing a deterioration of 22.3 billion yen from the third quarter of fiscal 2014.

Consolidated revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2015 was 1,166.9 billion yen, essentially unchanged from the third quarter of fiscal 2014. Revenue in Japan decreased 1.5%. Although revenue in Japan from system integration services increased, revenue from PCs and server-related products decreased. Revenue outside of Japan rose 1.2%. Revenue from the Mobilewear sub-segment increased. Fujitsu recorded an operating profit of 14.0 billion yen, down 19.1 billion yen from the third quarter of fiscal 2014. The decline was the result of recording 17.6 billion yen in business model transformation expenses for strengthening business fundamentals in the EMEIA region, such as expenses relating to the closure of a product development facility in Europe.

"VMware, Inc., a leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2015..."

'VMware's Q4 2015 was a solid finish to 2015," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. 'We were
especially pleased with the growth across our portfolio of emerging products and businesses, including NSX, EndUser
Computing and Virtual SAN. All of these businesses demonstrated strong growth in both Q4 and for the full year,
underscoring the momentum we expect to continue into 2016.'

The Friday Five is a weekly Red Hat blog post with 5 of the week's top news items and ideas from or about Red Hat and the technology industry. Consider it your weekly digest of things that caught our eye...

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"Red Hat announced a collaboration agreement with Google that will soon make Red Hat's OpenShift Dedicated platform available on the Google Cloud Platform in addition to Amazon Web Services.

Sure, there was plenty of fanfare to punctuate the announcement, but that wasn't really the important part.

If Google is to make its Cloud Platform more competitive against AWS and Microsoft Azure, in what has clearly now boiled down to a three-way race for the public cloud space, it needs to open up GCP as a conduit for integration - for making the software products we used to call 'platforms' communicate with one another..."

Over-the-Top Video (OTT) is hot and it's happening now; it's not some future state. As everyone knows, there are no second chances on the Internet. Consumers who have a less than perfect experience Do. Not. Come. Back.

So how to ensure perfect video performance and 100 percent availability for your business critical Internet TV platform?

One of the most innovative solutions that has emerged in this space is to use multiple CDNs together to ensure performance and availability. Many of the top OTT providers already do this. In fact, according to Dan Rayburn, nearly half of enterprises doing over $100K/MRR are currently using a multi-CDN strategy.

Fourth-quarter consolidated revenue was $7 billion, flat year over year (up 3% on a constant currency basis). GAAP net income attributable to EMC was $771 million in the fourth quarter, and GAAP earnings per weighted average diluted share was $0.39 in the fourth quarter. Non-GAAP net income attributable to EMC was $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter, and non-GAAP earnings per weighted average diluted share in the fourth quarter was $0.65.

Full-year 2015 GAAP and non-GAAP revenue was $24.7 billion and $24.8 billion, respectively, up 1% year over year (up 5% on a constant currency basis2. GAAP net income attributable to EMC for 2015 was $2 billion, and GAAP earnings per weighted average diluted share was $1.01. Non-GAAP3 net income attributable to EMC for 2015 was $3.6 billion, and non-GAAP3 earnings per weighted average diluted share for 2015 was $1.82.

Japanese telecommunication service provider SoftBank Corp is streamlining its data center operations by deploying BROCADE VDX SWITCHES to provide Ethernet fabrics as part of the company's group-wide common service infrastructure network. The new infrastructure will greatly reduce complexity and the cost of network operations within SoftBank's data centers, giving the company greater agility to pursue new growth opportunities in Over-The-Top (OTT) services.

Comcast Business unveiled WiFi Pro, a comprehensive Wi-Fi solution that includes cloud-based controls, marketing tools and other advanced capabilities. WiFi Pro is designed and built for a wide range of businesses such as SMBs and enterprise branch locations.

According to Cisco, Wi-Fi devices will power a majority of all Internet traffic by 2017, and a 2015 study by Tech Pro Research found that 74 percent of businesses are using or are planning to use 'bring your own device' (BYOD) policies. These, and other trends in consumer and employee behavior are causing demand for Wi-Fi to grow exponentially. WiFi Pro was built to enable businesses to serve both guests/patrons and employees.

Windstream is pleased to announce that it has achieved MEF CE 2.0 certification for its Carrier E-Access services.
'This certification is a great accomplishment for Windstream and validates that the design, quality and performance of our Carrier Ethernet services conform to the highest and most current industry standards,' stated Art Nichols, Vice President of Windstream's Network Architecture. 'The CE 2.0 certification along with Windstream's reliable data network infrastructure provides our customers with a very competitive Ethernet solution within the U.S. marketplace.'

F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) announced the hire of Mike Convertino to lead its Information Security team. As the company's first Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Convertino's first priority is the continued protection of company and customer assets and data. He will also play a lead role in the development of F5's security product roadmap and represent F5 in the IT industry and wider security community. Convertino started on January 18 and is based in Seattle at F5's headquarters...